


Leavin' On Your Mind (1x03) - 🍺🚿☕️

by Jinxter



Series: Episode Snapshots [2]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Bi-Curiosity, Depression, F/F, F/M, Jealous Champ Hardy, Kind Nicole Haught, Oblivious Wynonna, Sad Waverly Earp, sexual awakening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 14:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20311219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxter/pseuds/Jinxter
Summary: Embellished canon, a look into one possible take on Waverly's life and thoughts during this episode, from the night of Shorty's death until his memorial at the bar the next day. CW for depression/mental health struggles."A planner, a thinker, and a history buff," Nicole grins.Waverly's laughter is music to her ears. "What a nerd, I know. And an ugly crier. I bet you regret asking me out now. For coffee, I mean.""No, not at all," Nicole grins, her dimples popping charmingly, "and absolutely nothing about you is ugly."





	Leavin' On Your Mind (1x03) - 🍺🚿☕️

**Author's Note:**

> I pondered this for a month, but mostly wrote and edited today in a sprint just to break my writing dry spell and get _something_ finished for once. It isn't beta'd so all mistakes are mine, and it's my first WayHaught fic so I'm still finding my way around inside these characters, please go easy on me.

The cruiser's headlights cut through the evening fog, the air damp with moisture that the temperature isn't quite low enough to turn to snow yet. Nicole usually keeps the heater down low, often preferring to let the cold keep her alert on night time patrols and lessening the shock to her system when she gets out of the vehicle, but tonight the chill felt unusually prickly, so she had it up fairly warm. 

Circling around the back of town, she sees distant headlights shine out towards Purgatory before switching off. A car must have just pulled into the lookout area on a small hill closest to town, a spot Nedley informed her was both the local lovers' lane and pot-head paradise. With nothing else of interest or urgency to do and the town particularly quiet tonight, she turns the cruiser around and heads out toward the road leading up to the lookout.

Before her wheels even leave the road and hit gravel she can see the vehicle in question is Waverly's, and she winces. The young brunette doesn't seem the type to be up here doing drugs, not that you could ever know for sure in country towns with little to do in the way of entertainment, but Nicole didn't know what would be worse; catching the girl she liked doing something illegal, or in a compromising position with the boy-man she was in a relationship with. Still, the cruiser could have already been spotted so she couldn't very well turn around and abort her mission now.

She doesn't need to tap on the driver's window because it is already being rolled down as she approaches, and Waverly smiles at her, friendly, but sad. Her face is a little blotchy, her eyes rimmed with red, but in an instant Nicole can read that as not a sign of smoking weed in this instance, but crying. Definitely crying. Understandably, too, given the death of her boss earlier in the day.

Nicole smiles back, grateful to see Waverly is clothed and alone. "Waverly, hi."

"Officer Haught," Waverly says, momentarily pulling a goofy face and holding her hands up, "you got me."

"Everything okay up here?"

The smile falters for a moment then returns, but not as wide as before, and it still doesn't reach her eyes. "Yeah, everything is hunky dory. I was... I was on my way to Champ's but I just wanted some fresh air first and some space to think. Always thinking! Think, think, think." She giggles and averts her eyes, shy or embarrassed, then glances back up to find Nicole's still fixed on her.

"A planner _and_ a thinker," she smiles.

The reference to their first conversation pulls a thread in Waverly's heart and a little bit more of her comes undone and she doesn't know why it is so hard to stitch herself back together today. She tucks her hair behind her ear, feeling the coldness of her fingers on her face she rubs her hands together, blows on them to warm them.

"A girl of many talents," she jokes.

"I'll bet," Nicole says warmly, and steps a little closer. "Cold out tonight." Waverly watches long, soft fingers reach for her as Nicole takes her cold hands into her own, enveloping them in warmth, and the sweet gesture pulls another thread. Waverly's lip quivers, and she bites it to still it's movement, but it is too late to stop the tear that spills from each eye and the ones to follow.

She pulls her hands out of Nicole's and swipes at her cheeks. "Sorry," she smiles, shaking her head. "Sorry."

Nicole pulls her hands back, but not all the way out of the jeep. She rests her forearms on the edge of the door and leans forward slightly. "It's okay. You have nothing to apologise for. You've had a rough day."

Waverly looks up at the stars out the front window, almost frustrated by the redhead's kindness. She's making it too easy to feel things, things she'd rather swallow down and gloss over, or at least that has been her usual method of coping until now. But Shorty had always been there for her, along with Curtis, and now both of them are gone and she needs... she tries to not need anything from anyone but the kindness sure feels good.

Fresh tears fall and she swipes again at her cheeks, and again when a warm hand gives her shoulder a comforting squeeze. A shiver runs up her spine. She hadn't planned this detour out here, to sit in a cold vehicle. She was dressed only enough to get from her centrally-heated apartment above the bar, where she didn't want to be alone tonight, to Champ's parents' centrally-heated farmhouse.

"Come sit in the cruiser? The heater is on, it's a lot warmer than here. We can talk for a bit?"

It is in Waverly's mind to turn down the offer, but Nicole opens her door and she finds herself moving to step out before she can stop herself. She wraps her arms around herself, and the hand returns to her shoulder, guiding her to the cruiser's passenger door, which Nicole opens for her. She thanks her and slips into the warm leather seat, and holds her hands up to the heater vents before the officer even has the door shut.

A moment later the redhead slides into the driver's seat, and she leaves the engine running but switches off the headlights, and most of the dashboard lights dim or go off, leaving them lit by the soft blue moonlight alone. A few moments hang between them before Nicole glances over at Waverly, which again, much to her dismay, is enough to trigger even more tears and an anguished sob escapes.

She gives up on wiping the tears and just covers her mouth, pressing cold fingers to her lips to stop any more feelings from escaping. They're bubbling so close to the surface, and there are so many, and she can't... "Sorry," she starts again, and giggles for some reason.

"Hey," Nicole reaches for her other hand and tentatively tucks her fingers around under her own, "it's okay."

"It's not though, is it?" Waverly blurts, her traitorous fingers having left their post against her lips to tuck her hair back again. She sniffs. "It's not. It hasn't been for... well since Curtis..."

Nicole's fingers squeeze ever so slightly. "I'm sorry about your uncle. Nedley told me he was a good man. Said he thought the world of you."

More tears fall and Waverly pats her jacket pockets, searching unsuccessfully until a small packet of tissues appear, held out in front of her, which she takes gratefully. "He always believed in me. He taught me how to be my own person even when all anyone saw was an Earp. He supported all my crazy endeavours, paid for my college courses, even the ridiculous ones that would never help make me employable. He didn't mind."

"I'm sorry I didn't get to meet him."

Waverly chuckles. "He'd have liked you."

Nicole smiles, not quite sure what to make of the comment, but happy to see a genuine smile on Waverly's face again, even if it is just for a moment.

"And then his death brought Wynonna home, and God, I'm happy to see her, but I'm mad at her too for being away for so long. Why did she have to go away? And now she and Agent Dolls have like this secret club and they want information I have but they don't want me in the club, not really, and I feel like I'm a kid again, you know?" She sits for a moment remembering the moment she was so excited about, presenting evidence and details it took her years - YEARS - to compile, and within minutes she'd been dismissed so that the two of them could work on it. She remembers Nicole knocking on the BBD office door to tell them about the report over the wire, right before it happened, and the dimpled smile she had flashed at her twice. There's another pang in her chest. "All I want to do is help them, but all I get is left behind and yelled at."

"Who yelled at you?"

Waverly looks across at her guiltily. "Henry. I mean I did follow him and he caught me, but still, he didn't need to sh..."

"He didn't need to what?"

"Nothing," Waverly says, unconvincingly. "Anyway, apparently I'm not as good a judge of character as I thought, among other things."

Nicole hums. "What is it that Dolls needs Wynonna for anyway? As far as I know she's completely untrained and has only ever been on the other side of the law before."

"Oh, uhh, it's more umm, like a family thing. Purgatory has a lot of families that have been in here for generations, so feuds tend to go on a long time. Our dad was the sheriff before Nedley, and I guess Wynonna was old enough to remember what he was working on. My contribution is more historical, background information, because I've done a lot of research about our family as well other original families and the town."

"A planner, a thinker, _and_ a history buff," Nicole grins.

Waverly's laughter is music to her ears. "What a nerd, I know. And an ugly crier. I bet you regret asking me out now. For coffee, I mean."

"No, not at all," Nicole grins, her dimples popping charmingly, "and absolutely nothing about you is ugly." 

A warmth spreads through Waverly, but unlike the heat from the car's vents, this comes from inside.

"But as I recall, it was you who was going to take me out for coffee, was it not?"

Waverly opens her mouth to answer, not that she quite knows what to say, but that hasn't stopped her before. One thing she can rely on when she's nervous is words. They tumble out of their own accord, often without being filtered, which is sometimes a problem. But her phone rings in her pocket and she seizes the distraction for the first time after ignoring it for the whole, hectic day.

"It's Champ," she says, looking at his name on the screen as though it were foreign to her.

"Are you going to answer?"

"Oh, uhh, yeah." She presses the button and leans over against the cruiser door. "Hi, Champ. Sorry I'm running late, I got held up at work and then I... I ran into Officer Haught." A beat. "No, not literally, we just got talking. I'll be there soon, okay?" Another beat. "Okay, bye." She turns to Nicole, who is sitting up a little straighter in her seat now.

"I... I should go."

"Alright." Nicole smiles, still warm, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Waverly knows when someone likes her, she's worked in a bar long enough to be quite used to being flirted with and has always somewhat enjoyed the attention. While she initially questioned if she'd misread their first conversation, after all Nicole hasn't explicitly told her she's gay, Waverly just knows. And it isn't that she doesn't enjoy Nicole flirting with her, rather it's the unfamiliar feeling of guilt about it that she stumbles over, a fear of hurting the other woman's feelings. Nicole, who has been nothing but kind to her, gentle with her, and in just a few short conversations has found a way of making her feel seen, heard, and appreciated. Sweet Nicole, who doesn't deserve to see her walk away into the arms of someone else. 

She shakes her head slightly and tries to get some perspective. She's with Champ, she was with Champ long before Nicole ever came to Purgatory, she can't help it if she's already taken. But is she, really?

"I should go."

"You said that already."

"Right. Yes. I did." Waverly presses her palms to her thighs. "Will you come to Shorty's tomorrow? It's not the official funeral or wake or anything but it's kinda just what we do here when someone dies. People come to Shorty's to be together."

Nicole nods, "I'll be there."

Waverly smiles. "Good. Well, enjoy the rest of your shift. I hope you don't have to rescue any other crying girls."

She chuckles. "Drive safe, Waverly."

Waverly opens the car door and shivers as the icy breeze curls around her ankles. "You too, Nicole." She smiles again and closes the door, and looks back at the cruiser pulling away as she walks to her jeep nearby. She wraps her arms around herself and waits until the car is out of sight before opening her door and climbing in.

Any warmth she regained in the cruiser is completely lost by the time she arrives at Champ's, and she eagerly steps inside as soon as he opens the door to her. Most of the downstairs lights are off, the living room lit up only by the tv screen, so it becomes quickly apparent to her that his parents have already gone to bed. She unzips her boots and places them by the door so the wooden heels don't make too much noise on the floorboards.

"Don't I get a kiss?"

She stands up on tip toes in her fuzzy socks and presses her lips to his, though when she feels him about to deepen it she pulls away and tucks her face into his neck, enjoying the warmth of his body and his arms wrapped around her. She untucks his undershirt from his jeans and slides her hands in against the bare skin of his back, and he jumps.

"Jeez, babe, your hands are like ice." He pulls her hands out and briefly rubs them between his own before releasing them and wandering off into the living room, expecting her to follow, so she does. He flops down on one end of the couch, his arm slung over the back, his usual position waiting for her to join him. Instead of warming her hands on him though, this time she wraps her arms around herself, her hands under her arms, and she leans into him as he drapes his arm around her. He takes a swig of his beer and his eyes return to the football on tv, probably a re-run of an old game, not that Waverly would know either way.

Her eyes away from the screen and she remembers the missed call icon that she'd seen on her phone when Champ called earlier. She slides it out of her back pocket and unlocks it. The missed call from Chrissy had been the one she rejected when she was at the caravan park, then there were two from Nicole in quick succession, and another from Chrissy late in the day. A text message had followed that one up, '_hey honey, dad told me about shorty. are you okay? call me whenever you want, any time_'. She quickly taps out a reply. '_Thanks, C. <3 Am at Champ's. Call you in the morning? Love you. Xx_' Chrissy responds immediately. '_sure thing. love you xx_'

Scrolling further down through her messages, she sees Nicole left a voicemail. Champ, no longer watching the game, also notices, "Who's Nicole?"

"The new Deputy. Officer Haught."

"Oh? Did she call you to tell you I'd been kidnapped?" Waverly shrugs, her thumb hovering over the call button, hesitant. His arm, draped around her, squeezes slightly and releases. "Let's listen."

She looks up at him, and he looks patiently back at her. When no excuse not to comes to mind, Waverly exhales and presses call, and Champ helps out by poking his finger at the screen to hit the speaker button.

_"Hi Waverly, it's Nic-- Officer Haught. I'm calling to let you know there is a hostage situation unfolding at the supply store. I'm sure she'll be fine but Wynonna has entered the building in exchange for the hostages, although the people released tell us there are still two more inside; Shorty and Champ. I'll call you again if there are any updates otherwise I'm sure Wynonna will call you as soon as it's all over. If you need anything, anything at all, you can always call me, anytime. In case you don't still have it, my number is 555-0145."_

She presses the button to save the message and ends the call.

"I can't believe she thought Wynonna would call you before me. I'm your boyfriend." Champ shakes his head slightly, and reaches for her phone, sliding it onto the coffee table and returning his hand to her waist. He shifts his body to stretch out beneath her, and his fingers, warm and calloused, slip under the hem of her top.

"She's my sister. And she did call me before you did." Waverly rolls with him so she's lying on top, belly to belly, his hand moving around to her lower back, and she rests her cheek on his chest.

Champ scoffs. "Yeah well Agent Dolls was debuffing me and taking my statement. I had to tell him everything while it was fresh in my memory. For evidence."

She doesn't correct his mistake and sighs, drawing circles on his bicep with her finger. "Yeah, I know."

"What did that cop mean when she gave you her number if you 'don't still have it'?"

"Oh. Just that she gave me her business card when she introduced herself, I guess she thought some people might just throw it away."

"When was that?"

"The other day. She came into Shorty's for a coffee."

"Oh." His hand slides under the waistband of her jeans. "You never mentioned it."

Waverly tucks her hand between their bodies to warm it, her fingers perpetually cold, and she sighs into his shirt. "I..." She remembers the tall redhead, smiling at her from the doorway. Dimples as deep as the ocean. Soft hands freeing her from the confines of her blasted wet shirt. Those big brown eyes. Her chest hurts and she doesn't want to think about why, not right now. She closes her eyes. "It was nothing."

He hums, and she can feel the vibration through her cheek. His hand slides deeper into her jeans, cupping her ass, and his other hand leads a trail up her spine towards her bra strap, and for the briefest moment she imagines the hands aren't his.

Pushing herself up and off him with a start, she stands and holds her hand out to him. "Can we just sleep tonight? It has been a crazy day, I'm so tired."

He doesn't even try to hide his disappointment, and sighs heavily. "Sure, babe. The game's nearly finished, just a few minutes left." 

She leaves him to finish watching while she uses his ensuite to wash up and change into one of his t-shirts. When he finally comes to bed, he curls against her, his semi pressing against her hip as he kisses the side of her face, and she pretends to sleep until he gives up, his breathing slows and his limbs relax. Only then does she open her eyes to stare at the crack on the ceiling.

\---- 

Early the next afternoon, Waverly wipes down the bar despite having already done so already, a few times. She looks over at the platters of food set out for the friends and townsfolk who come to mourn and remember Shorty. Most of the food is still untouched, and she wonders how many more people will arrive, and whether the rest of the food still out in the kitchen will be enough or if it will go to waste. Shorty was popular in town, but the people of Purgatory can be strange sometimes, those you think will be there sometimes aren't.

Guilt fills her stomach, she swallows to keep it down. She can't talk, she couldn't bring herself to go to her own uncle's funeral. Chrissy had bundled her up instead after she had a panic attack while getting ready, and they ended up out at the homestead, saying goodbye to him at the place she lost him. The same place she'd lost everything good in her life. Champ didn't go to Curtis' funeral either, even after working for him for years. She rests her elbows on the bar, tuning out the indecipherable conversations of patrons scattered in small pockets throughout the bar. She feels a bit lost, her uncle and a man who was basically an honorary uncle, both gone within weeks, and everything keeps moving at full speed thanks to Wynonna coming of age and the curse kicking in. She can't even talk to Chrissy about it, not really. Not freely.

"Waverly," a soft voice interrupts her thoughts, and she looks across to see Nicole approaching. Her stomach roils again, and she sucks in a breath.

"I'm so sorry," Nicole continues, now standing in front of her. Her large, brown eyes convey the honesty of her sentiment, and for a moment Waverly allows herself feel the sorrow of her recent losses.

"I can't believe he's gone," she says, and then struggles to restrain the emotions tumbling beneath her skin when her voice breaks a little on her last word.

A warm hand covers hers and squeezes gently, quickly followed by another which reaches closer to her, stroking her forearm and wrist, before retreating back to the safety of their clasped hands. Safe. The word crosses her mind and she recognises somehow she feels safe.

Before she can delve any deeper into that, Champ appears behind her, his arm reaching around, his large hand on her cheek. "Oh, it's okay," he says, pulling her face into his kisses to the side of her forehead.

He kisses her face and her body tenses. She wonders if his affection was always this suffocating and she just didn't care to breathe before. Before...

Nicole quickly pulls her hands back to the edge of the bar and Waverly stiffens, annoyed at his attempt to comfort her causing the loss of the first actual comfort she'd let herself feel in, well, far too long. The look on Nicole's face changes, a flicker of pain, and it makes Waverly feel more uncomfortable. She knows the redhead likes her, and she knows Nicole knows that she has a boyfriend, but she can't bear to see Nicole hurt by having that fact rubbed in her face up close right in front of her. It feels cruel, and she looks away.

Waverly tilts her head away from Champ, reaches up and wraps her fingers around his wrist, trying to silently request he let her go. "Hey, um, okay," she says, trying to divert his attention from his excessive affection. He doesn't respond, and she tries harder, raising her other hand up to his bicep and leaning further away, but his kisses continue and she doesn't really know how to break away from him without causing an unnecessary scene. 

In front of her, the awkwardness apparent on Nicole's face intensifies, and it starts to look like she'll walk away before Champ stops. Waverly urgently reaches out for her, their fingers brushing slightly at the edge of her reach before the weight of Champ's hand sliding down her arm pulls it back slightly. "Uh, hey. Um, I got your voicemail." 

Nicole glances down at her hands where they had touched, and up to her again with a gorgeous, wide-eyed surprise that makes Waverly's heart swell with affection.

"Yeah," Champ says, leaning his body heavily over Waverly's small one, his arm looped firmly around her shoulder and his face pressed against hers.

"About Wynonna. Thanks," she continues, and Nicole smiles softly at her.

"Thank you," Champ parrots.

"That was really sweet."

Nicole's face splits into a smile, her eyes still wide and sparkling. "Yeah, sure," she says breathily. Their eyes lock briefly, but then her eyes flicker over to Champ and her smile falls away, replaced by uncertainty and the return of sadness. She licks her lips nervously and looks down. "Of course," she says, and with a final quick glance at Waverly, steps back from the bar, turns and walks away. 

Champ straightens up, lifting his weight off her a little, though leaves his arm draped around her shoulder and his presence still feels a bit overbearing. Her eyes follow the officer, mindlessly taking in her khakis, tactical belt, crisply ironed shirt, and perfect french braid. She watches her greet some of the men sitting at the tables at the front of the bar, her eyes tracing the tall woman's side profile, her defined jaw, her nose, her perfectly sculpted eyebrows.

"I don't know." Champ's voice interrupts her train of thought. "Something about her rubs me the wrong way. Miss Officer what's-her-name." He scoffs and looks at Waverly with a smug grin.

"It's Haught," she says, with a flicker of irritation igniting in her belly at his tone. Briefly she wonders how much of his dislike of her is recognising a rival for Waverly's attention and how much, if any, is because she's a woman. A gay woman. But a woman who has done nothing to him other than sign up to protect the town, his town, and who has been proper and shown respect, care and concern for Waverly, something a little unfamiliar to her in such an honest way. Around here, love and caring is more unspoken, expressed more grudgingly, gruffly. Rarely so tenderly. There's a vulnerability to the way Nicole approaches her, and it is equally refreshingly, enticing, and somewhat terrifying to consider accepting and returning the same openness. But the notion speaks to a need she thought had long been quashed, left in the rubble of a childhood demolished by people leaving her, from which she had learned to expect less, to want less. It hurts to want more again. 

"She's..." she begins, wanting to defend the other woman. "She..." She wants him to understand how _good_ Nicole is, but she hesitates, feeling torn between that and also not wanting to share that with him, wanting to keep what she knows about Nicole to herself. Knowing she'll cause a rift with him if she does anything to make him more jealous and suspicious of their friendship. 

Everything starts to fracture, she feels acutely how out of control things are, how the life she knows is slipping through her fingers. She wants Curtis back, she wants Shorty back, she has Wynonna back but she is being kept at a distance from the actual hands-on work of ending their family's legacy. Waverly wants to feel more included in her life, a part of her team. She wants... more from her boyfriend than the physical closeness, the certainty of his presence, the avoidance of talking about the rumours, the times he smells like perfume, the other women's underwear she's found twice now in his truck. Tears sting at her eyes and she presses her fingers to them to stop them before she falls apart completely. She doesn't want to lose him either.

"Oh, baby, baby, it's okay. Don't cry," he soothes, "don't cry, it's okay. I'm okay." She sniffs, his words actually helping to distract her away from the feelings cliff's edge as she tries to comprehend his last words. "Right? Wynonna and I were almost human sacrificed. Shorty saved us."

Waverly feels the words like a knife, the sting of realising his assumption that her tears are about nearly losing him , that he doesn't even know how heavy her uncles' deaths are weighing on her, the turmoil she feels about Wynonna's return, about the curse being real and having been kidnapped by revenants herself only a short time ago. She realises she hasn't told him, not even about the stuff she could tell him, but also that he hasn't asked, he hasn't tried either. And now, as a result, he thinks she's thinking about him when he has been the least of her worries. 

"Yeah," she says. She should be thinking about him, Waverly realises. How could she not be thinking about him? And Wynonna. Her boyfriend and sister were kidnapped and nearly possessed by revenants yesterday, Champ thinks he was about to be killed as a sacrifice. She's barely thought about what he might be going through, even though he seems to be fine, seems to enjoy having a wild story to tell his friends. But they could have died, or close enough to it, and she's only thinking about herself. And Nicole. But she's with Champ, she lo-- she cares a lot about him. He's been there for her for years, when no one else was. Well, other than Chrissy and Curtis. And that was enough. It has to be enough, she can't lose anyone else right now. She can't. And she doesn't quite know what exactly is happening with Nicole, but if it feels like something she has to hide, it can't be good, right? She's supposed to be the good person, the nice person, that everyone knows and loves. That's who she is, how she's known. But it's not nice causing her boyfriend to be jealous, to be wanting to be... closer... to someone else who wants to be more. She has to focus.

"Yeah. It's okay," he comforts, even though she feels all is distinctly not okay right now.

Waverly tries to remember she has to rely on herself, back her own horse, as Curtis would say. She has to not be needy. She switches her mind back into gear and tries to remember the details of the cover story Dolls had briefed her to use if Champ wanted to discuss what had happened. "Yeah," she says again, more firmly this time, sniffing away the last of her emotional tearing up. "Dolls says that, um, they were, uh, brainwashed by some kind of cult."

"Yeah," he says again.

Guilt for her dip into self-centredness seeps through her veins. "And Wynonna tells me you were really brave." In a desperate attempt to make up for her inattention to him, and for pulling away from him, the lie slips out. She chokes back the part of her frustrated by his willing acceptance of the lie, even after trading barbs with Wynonna all through school, he's still oblivious to the sheer improbability of her complimenting his bravery. Instead, he preens under the compliment.

"I was. One thing's for sure, I'm never leaving your side again, okay?" She knows she should feel grateful, this is what she wants, for people to not leave her, isn't it? But a lightning bolt of panic pulses through her veins, a feeling of wanting to run, far far away, and she wonders if the feeling is in any way similar to what Wynonna felt before she left town, in which case she understands the decision a little better. "Oh, come on," he senses her tension and pulls her closer again, resuming kissing the side of her face over and over. She forces her body to relax into it, though she feels outside of herself, disconnected from her body. Her eyes are drawn again to where Nicole is chatting now with Dolls and she can't, she just can't. She presses a hand to Champ's chest and pulls away. With a forced smile she and a consolation pecks on the lips, she steps away. "I need to check on Wynonna." 

He nods, and pours himself another beer as Waverly rounds the bar. She crosses her arms tightly in front of her, her long-time way of holding in the emptiness inside her. She needs to patch herself up again, this time with doing right by Shorty, by being a better girlfriend to Champ, by being a better sister to Wynonna. By throwing herself into whatever it takes to end this curse once and for all, by doing whatever it takes to earn the trust of Dolls and her sister. If they could only see how much more useful she can be to them, they'd want her to join them.

She sidles up next to her sister, spins, and casually leans back against the pool table next to her. "You know, maybe I could have helped. You know, like, really helped. Out there, with you guys. As a team." Her voice falters a little when she says the last word and she tries again to school herself into normalcy, to not show how much she wants this. To not be so desperate and needy that they'll think her too weak to belong. She's not weak.

Wynonna looks at her with a firmness she hasn't shown since the day she arrived back and discovered Waverly's 'scrapbooking wall'. "That's not our deal, Wav." She feels her heart break a little more, and Wynonna looks away. "Some team. Not even sure we're the good guys."

Determined that she will get there, that her sister will allow her into the inner realm one day, she resolves to be whatever support Wynonna needs for as long as it takes to prove herself. Even if that is just as a cheerleader. "Well, good guys seem to be in short supply these days," Waverly says with the bitterness on her tongue of having misjudged Henry just the day before, and feeling the stinging loss again of two definitely good guys; Curtis and Shorty, but with an eye toward gentle encouragement, she continues earnestly. "Believe me. You are definitely one of them."

She hears footsteps approaching, and turns to see Dolls. He's looks at her without a word, and waits. Waverly grits her teeth, knowing he wants to speak with Wynonna alone, and once again feels the sting of being left out. But she can't be petulant, she has to prove herself, and if leaving them to it right now is what they want, that's what she'll do. She pushes away from the pool table and heads back to the bar.

She spots Nicole just as she's stepping out the door talking into her radio, obviously having responding to a call out and having to leave. She settles back in behind the bar, pouring a few more beers for waiting patrons, and when things are quiet again, pulls out her phone. 

There's a message waiting. '_Sorry I had to leave, duty calls. Thank you for inviting me. -Nicole_'

She types a reply out and debates with herself only a moment before sending. She's being nice. Polite. Friendly. And it's not flirting when she really does owe the officer a coffee, after all.

'_Thank you for coming, it meant a lot to me that you were here. And yes, I had already saved your number_ [beer mug emoji] [shower emoji] [coffee cup emoji]'

Across town, pulling up to the address of a noise complaint by Bunny Loblaw. From the street the 'raging party' sounded more like a normal afternoon cook out with low level music playing, so this should be fun. Nicole's phone vibrates in her pocket. Glancing at the house she spots a middle-aged blonde woman peering out the front window, who then disappears, presumably to open the door for her. She sighs, opens the message received and smiles. Maybe the afternoon won't go as badly as she thought.


End file.
